Is Germany’s Angela Merkel Joking?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Photo: MICHAEL SOHN/AP

Stephen: The latest figures estimate that 19.4m people in the Eurozone were unemployed in April.The highest increases were registered in Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Portugal. Separately, data showed that Italy’s jobless rate reached a 36-year high in April of 11.9pc. And this is Angela Merkel’s message to them… There’s definitely something very wrong if such ‘influential’ leaders think this is the answer.

Angela Merkel’s Advice for Europe’s Unemployed: Move

By Jeevan Vasagar, Berlin – The Telegraph, UK – June 14, 2013

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Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel has a simple message for the millions young people in the Eurozone who are out of work – move.

In an interview, Mrs Merkel said the high levels of youth unemployment in Europe represent a “huge crisis”, comparing the Eurozone’s difficulties with post-Communist eastern Germany.

Speaking to the BBC, she said that when unemployment soared after the fall of the Berlin Wall, “many young people … only had jobs because they moved to the south.”

Mrs Merkel said: “I think it’s unfair that it is the young people especially who have to pay the bill for something they didn’t do.

“But there’s no way around it. We have to manufacture products or offer services in Europe that we can sell.”

Her comments are the latest indication of Germany’s concern that the prolonged economic crisis in southern Europe is putting the European project under strain. Germany is seeking to attract more migrants from crisis-hit countries to meet its own shortage of skilled workers.

In the interview, the German chancellor emphasised the need for economic reforms that would make Europe more competitive rather than insisting on limits to government spending.

She pointed out that deficit-cutting targets had been relaxed, with France being given more time to gets its deficit below the European Commission’s ceiling of 3 per cent of GDP.

She said: “With regard to jobs and growth, the eurozone and other countries are in a difficult situation. The issue is not austerity, the issue is to get back to growth.

“This process is under way. Europe has to decide: how do we make a living?

What do we want to produce? What do we want to manufacture? How can we cut red tape? How can we intensify trade?” Asked about her reaction to anti-German demonstrations abroad, Mrs Merkel said: “We have demonstrations not just abroad but also in Germany. As a government, as politicians, we have to accept that. I want these countries to recover quickly.”

“You know as well as me that the European countries all agreed to the growth and stability pact. Nevertheless, we gave many countries the possibility to have a deficit above 3 per cent. France, for instance, but also Spain and Portugal.”

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